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His flesh crawled in the old man’s presence, and every instinct recoiled from an unfathomable feeling of wrongness.
    “Would you like me to continue?” Aristodeus asked. “Maybe I’ll skip to the parts that aren’t in the Liber.”
    Deacon expected his mother to storm out of the house and condemn them both as heretics. He caught sight of her at the kitchen window, but she was paying them no attention. She looked to be preparing lunch.
    “There was a war in Araboth,” Aristodeus said. “You see, Ain was surrounded by mighty beings of his own making, and the most powerful were the Aeonic Triad: the Demiurgos, the Archon, and their sister Eingana. Don’t ask me why, but the Demiurgos grew obsessed with his sister, and his sole purpose in life was to violate her.”
    Deacon frowned that he didn’t understand.
    “Suffice it to say, the Demiurgos wanted to harm his sister. The Archon refused to permit it. He forged a sword of incomparable power and infused it with his own essence. The Sword of the Archon is, in a manner of speaking, his imprint or his double. It is not, however, his slave. The sword is, if you will permit me saying so, its own person.  
    “Together, sword and maker assailed the Demiurgos while he was in mid-clinch with Eingana. The three siblings plunged into the Void, and Ain preserved them so that they emerged the other side unscathed.  
    “Nothing, understand, can enter the Void and continue in existence, but these three did. You might question why Ain permitted this, and believe me, theologians have quibbled about this very point for centuries. Either he couldn’t bear losing his greatest creations, they say, or he had some far-reaching and unknowable purpose in afflicting our cosmos with their presence. If the latter, it casts all manner of aspersions on the loving Ain of the Liber, but that need not concern you.
    “The fight between the Archon and the Demiurgos continued on our side of the Void, while Eingana fled among the stars. The Archon succeeded in flinging the Demiurgos back into the Void, this time without Ain’s protection. But rather than wink out of existence, the Demiurgos threw up the Abyss around himself with the sheer force of his will. He is preserved there to this day, trapped at the heart of the infernal realm in a tomb of ice.
    “Meanwhile, Eingana had fallen pregnant following her brother’s unwanted attention. The child she bore was so malformed, it could not exit her womb, and so the Archon slit open her belly with his sword and delivered the aberration. It had the head of a dog and the body of a baboon. Needless to say, Eingana was horrified and abandoned the child, as did the all-caring Archon, who then came here to Urddynoor to guide the old faith in the ways of the Supernal Realm. After the Reckoning, he continued by steering the path of the fledgling Templum. As a sign of his protection, he entrusted his sword to the Keeper in Aeterna, who is tasked with averting the greatest of all evils that the Demiurgos sends against us out of spite for his brother.”
    Deacon’s head spun with all that he was hearing. The Liber touched upon the war in Araboth, but it was quiet on the details.
    Aristodeus gave him room to think, and then finally, Deacon returned to his earlier unspoken question:
    “Why me?”
    “You believe in fate?” Aristodeus said, once more rummaging through the folds of his robe and growing increasingly irritated.
    “No.” Gralia said it was a sin to think such things.
    “Neither do I,” Aristodeus said. “If it helps, consider yourself uniquely created by Nous for a task that no one else can do. Of course, my own view is that there is no substitute for innate aptitude coupled with hard work, discipline, and the guidance of an exceptional teacher. It will be made clear to you one day. For now, all you need do is listen, learn, and do as I instruct. The very worst that could happen is that you will be a great swordsman, a brilliant thinker, and